Readers remember President Kennedy

A 1964 family photo taken at John F. Kennedy's grave.

For my country

I was a little over a year old when President Kennedy died, so I have no direct memory of him. However, he influenced my life in two ways.

First, in the weeks before I was born, his calm and courageous stand against the Soviet Union averted an almost certain nuclear war and preserved the world into which I was born.

Second, President Kennedy's challenge to land a man on the moon by the end of the 1960s captured the nation's imagination and definitely that of a young man at Semple Elementary School in the late '60s and early '70s. I followed the lunar landing missions closely and later pursued a career in electrical engineering as a result of my interest in the space program.

I then spent 29 years working at the Naval Ordnance Station and supporting the Fleet. It was what I did for my country after our country (and President Kennedy) did so much for me.

JIM BARKS

Louisville 40291

A gray day

It was a typical cold gray November day. And, it was Friday. It was "business" as usual at Central High School. I was in my fifth-period class when the news came over the public address [PA] system that President Kennedy had been shot. When the bell rang for the sixth- period class, I remembered going across the hall and feeling a little sad. What if he dies, I thought. Immediately, President Abraham Lincoln and his assassination jumped in my mind.

A math functions test awaited me in sixth period, and I was a little nervous. After about 10 minutes, another announcement came across the PA system: The president had died at Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas. Of course, we were stunned. This also meant that there would not be a test that day. We were sent home immediately.

When I got home and from that time own except for going to church on that Sunday, I stayed glued to the television. I knew it was history in the making and I wanted to witness it and be able to tell my children where I was when this tragedy occurred. Our class dedicated the 1964 yearbook to President Kennedy's memory. He was our president when we entered high school and President Lyndon B. Johnson was our president when we graduated. And I did take the math test upon coming back to school the day after President Kennedy's funeral.

CLAUDIA S. GEURIN

Louisville 40291

Youth was gone

It's difficult to think that anything so traumatic, so public and so tragic as the Kennedy assassination wouldn't have a major effect, both national and personal.

I've often thought that the event led to the behavior later in the decade of what we now think of as The Sixties. We were angry, we felt frustrated and we needed to lash out. Even something as trivial as JFK's haircut became the basis for the look of the decade.

Politically, we can only speculate - and often have - as to how Vietnam and racial discrimination might have been handled differently if he'd lived. He was imperfect and not always politically idealistic, but he did have an image that suggests he would have led the nation to calmer, more peaceful resolutions of those twin demons of the time.

Certainly, we wouldn't have had the devastating turmoil of the reviled LBJ and discredited Nixon. But that's the frustrating thing about history. You can't go back and you can't go forward on things that didn't happen. If Kennedy hadn't been shot in Dallas that day, we'd have never had this particular conversation, wondering how the world might have been different if he hadn't been shot. It just wouldn't have occurred to us. (For example, the country didn't know he was sick from - possibly dying from - Addison's Disease. What if he had died from that illness in 1964 or 65 or 66? We'd be having a different kind of retrospection.)

Personally, as well as for a lot of my generation, he was the youth and energy, the romance and ideals, of what could be possible. We'd grown up with the likes of Truman and Eisenhower -old, gray, pasty men. To us, Kennedy thought like we thought, valued what we valued, swung like we swung, lived like we lived - or like we would have wanted to live. When he died, and Johnson addressed the nation, it felt to me like we were right back where we'd been. Youth was gone.

STEVE KAUFMAN

Louisville 40207

Horrible weekend

I remember Nov. 22, 1963 as if it were yesterday. In 1959 when Sen. John F. Kennedy was influential in getting the law passed for 18-year-olds to vote I had just turned 19 and he was the first person for whom I ever cast a ballot. I recall his statement to Congress that, "if 18- year-olds are old enough to go to war they should be considered old enough to vote."

On the day our president was murdered I was teaching the first grade at Saint James School in Louisville when our principal came over the loud speaker, announced that our president had been shot and asked us to stop what we were doing and have our students pray for our president. About 30 minutes later she came back on the loud speaker and announced that our president was dead and we should pray for his Eternal Rest in Heaven. This was well before the ACLU was in vogue but, that didn't matter to us because we teachers were nuns, teaching in a Catholic school.

From morning until night we watched the news of that horrible weekend. We saw, in real time, the murder of Lee Harvey Oswald by Jack Ruby. We did not have a color TV so we did not get the full impact of the blood all over Jackie Kennedy's clothes. I recall when Mrs. Kennedy was asked if she would like to change her clothes before leaving Dallas she said, "No, I want the people to see what was done to my husband." Then there was the swearing in of Lyndon Johnson on the airplane as our new president and the announcement that Officer Tipton had been murdered by Oswald. Next came the wake before the funeral; Jackie placing a ring on JFK's finger, the lines of mourners waiting for hours just to walk past and touch his coffin, little John John saluting his father's casket, the riderless horse with the boots backwards in the stirrups and the eternal flame that continues burning to this day.

Most everyone experiences heartache of some kind during his or her life that stays with them forever. This is one that I hope never to forget and never to see again.

MARY ANNE KEVIL

La Grange, Ky. 40031

Simple times no more

I remember the day very clearly. I was in Catholic grade school. The nuns gathered the student body in the gym. We were told our president was injured in a motorcade. The teachers were crying. I walked home from school and my father was home from work! He was hugging my mother and they also were crying and I learned President Kennedy had died.

The nation changed that day, and to the best of my memory, lives changed also. The decade of the '60s exploded: LBJ, RFK, MLK, the civil rights movement, the Vietnam War, "sex, drugs and rock n roll"?.

My family visited the president's grave in 1964 on a trip to the northeast where my parents grew up. A simple white fence surrounded the eternal flame. Fifty years later, the conspiracy continues and simple times are no more.

MARY ELLEN GENARDI

Louisville 40242

A gray day

It was a typical cold gray November day. And, it was Friday. It was "business" as usual at Central High School. I was in my fifth-period class when the news came over the public address [PA] system that President Kennedy had been shot. When the bell rang for the sixth- period class, I remembered going across the hall and feeling a little sad. What if he dies, I thought. Immediately, President Abraham Lincoln and his assassination jumped in my mind.

A math functions test awaited me in sixth period, and I was a little nervous. After about 10 minutes, another announcement came across the PA system: The president had died at Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas. Of course, we were stunned. This also meant that there would not be a test that day. We were sent home immediately.

When I got home and from that time own except for going to church on that Sunday, I stayed glued to the television. I knew it was history in the making and I wanted to witness it and be able to tell my children where I was when this tragedy occurred. Our class dedicated the 1964 yearbook to President Kennedy's memory. He was our president when we entered high school and President Lyndon B. Johnson was our president when we graduated. And I did take the math test upon coming back to school the day after President Kennedy's funeral.

CLAUDIA S. GEURIN

Louisville 40291

Before evil

Before there was a 9/11, there was Nov. 22, 1963. Both dates are indelibly etched in my brain, and both represent a loss of innocence for me and my country.

On that Friday afternoon 50 years ago, I sat at my desk waiting for the final bell that would signal the beginning of the weekend. My teacher, Ann Stites, was wrapping up her 7th-grade Social Studies class at Gottschalk Junior High School (now the Iroquois High School building on Taylor Boulevard in Louisville's South End.

A few minutes before 3, the intercom crackled as our principal, John Patterson, began the end-of-day announcements. His somber voice informed us that President John F. Kennedy had died. I don't recall the principal noting any details of this tragedy, but a sudden hush fell over the classroom. Young, innocent faces suddenly aged as eyes filled with anguish, then tears.

After the bell rang, it was the usual mad scramble to get to my locker and exit the building. This time, however, I was on a mission. I had to get home in a hurry to tell Mom what had happened.

My mother, Evelyn, wasn't one to have a TV or radio on as she went through her daily routine, so I had to be the messenger, delivering the horrifying news. I ran the half-mile or so to my house, passing Zax Pharmacy on Brookline Avenue. No time to stop for a Choc-ola or afternoon snack on this day.

Charging through the front door, breathless, I tried to compose myself to break the news to Mom. But our next-door neighbor, Mickey Montgomery, a devout Catholic - as was the president - had already tearfully alerted Mom just before I arrived.

That evening, The Louisville Times headline read: "Kennedy Is Slain By Assassin; Texas Governor Is Also Cut Down." I remember watching the news coverage on our black-and-white television. Walter Cronkite nearly committed a taboo as he came close to tears while reporting the assassination.

Over the next few days, my brain was seared with images that remain to this day: First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy crawling on the limo's trunk to retrieve a piece of her husband's skull; Lyndon B. Johnson taking the oath of office on Air Force One; the president's rocking chair being removed from the White House; Lee Harvey Oswald, the suspected assassin, being gunned down by Jack Ruby on live television; a horse-drawn caisson carrying the flag-draped coffin; brothers Bobby and Teddy following on foot with Jackie; Black Jack, the riderless horse, with boots reversed in the stirrups to symbol a fallen leader; and John-John - on his third birthday - saluting his father's casket.

Camelot had come to a premature end. The nation had lost its "great vigor" as the president was known to say. And to this day I continue to wonder what might have been.

DOUG DRAPER

Louisville 40206

What could have been

When it happened, when the president was assassinated, 50 years seemed an eternity away.

The world was draped in black crepe.

I was serving in JFK's Peace Corps in Arequipa, Peru. Communication was primitive by today's standards. Perhaps there was a miscommunication. Why are the people I am passing saying," lo siento, Senora"? [I am sorry] It was a stunning blow never to be forgotten.

President John F. Kennedy was bright and full of potential. The world lost his genius, his ideas, his ideals to better the lot of those suffering in poverty. We will never know what could have actually been.

BARBARA S. CARPENTER

Louisville 40207

My birthday

My 16th birthday took place on Nov. 22, 1963. It was a day that I will never forget.

There was a sense of great loss for this nation, which revered the young president. We watched on television as his wife, his brothers and his two young children led the funeral procession. How could one not be moved?

I remember his speeches of encouragement, fairness and inspiration. He would no longer be there to show us the way.

CHARLES CECIL

La Grange, Ky. 40031

Beauty remembered

It has been my ritual, over the past 30 years, to send in letters about the death of President John F. Kennedy. Fifty years? How can it possibly be 50 years? I still see myself as that fresh-faced 15-year-old in French class at Sacred Heart Academy. But I am lying to myself. The mirror shows wrinkles in my face, a squinting of the eyes, and the glint of gray in my hair. Then it hits me. I am almost 20 years older than what JFK was on that horrible day in Dallas.

There will be no wrinkles, failing eyesight or silver threads in that glorious mane. He will be forever young. I no longer think of him in the convertible, or in the coffin, or under the eternal flame. No, my mind pictures Jack Kennedy on the water in his favorite boat. Jackie, sitting close to him, leans in to whisper something into his ear. John-John lazes on his mother's lap, clutching a toy plane. The sun shines brightly on their faces. The sea breeze dances in their hair. They are young, beautiful, and, most importantly, happy.

I would love to freeze them in this image, but I am no longer the innocent dreamer of 50 years ago. The joy of this image, however, does give me a hint of hope that the 15-year-old still lurks somewhere in this old girl yet.

JUDY POLLARD

Louisville 40222

Sad pep rally

The Waggener High student body was in a pep rally on that fateful day, getting ready to play the Male Bulldogs that night for what was at that time the state championship, as we had won the respective city and county championships. Emotions were running high as various principals exhorted us on to a rousing victory that evening. It had been announced earlier that the president had been shot, and at the end of the pep rally, one of the aforesaid individuals mentioned almost as an aside, that, "Oh yes, and the president is dead." Gasps, shouts, and then a deadly silence went through the entire student body in the gymnasium, cheerleaders cried, and we all filed out solemnly.

The championship game was canceled that night and rescheduled for two weeks later due to the intervening annual Male-Manual Thanksgiving Day game. We still contend to this day that we would have won the state championship had the game not been postponed, and it is a date forever engrained in our minds.

LARRY C. ETHRIDGE

Louisville 40204

Camelot

"Don't let it be forgot that once there was a spot, for one brief shining moment that was known as Camelot."

That line came from the 1960 Broadway musical "Camelot" that was a favorite of President John F. Kennedy. It also epitomized his brief time in office.

During the early 1960s, the country was in love with the youthful president and his elegant wife, Jacqueline. In my life, I was busy with friends at duPont Manual High School, preparing for the music school at the University of Louisville.

After two years at the music school, I ran out of money and decided to audition for an opening in the U.S. Military Academy Band at West Point, N.Y. I won the audition and at 19, I was a tuba player in one of the most prestigious bands in the United States.

With just three months in the band, Thanksgiving was approaching and I was homesick for friends and family back in Louisville.

Friday, Nov. 22, 1963. It was just another busy day at West Point. Or so I thought. We had just finished a performance and settled into a relaxing afternoon. I was shooting pool in the recreation room when one of the band members raced in and shouted "The president's been shot!" The first reaction from everyone in the room was a chuckle and disbelief. Sadly, we quickly realized it was real. The country and the world went into shock.

The next few days at West Point were a blur. All leave time was canceled and a special performance was planned in honor of the president.

The ceremony was performed at Trophy Point, overlooking the Hudson River on a cold, blustery day. The band was in dress blues and our conductor was Col. William H. Schimpf. In honor of our fallen leader's service in the Navy we played the Navy hymn, "Eternal Father, Strong to Save." There was not a dry eye in the band as we performed our good-bye to the 35th President.

Fast forward to the early 1970s. I had finished military service and was busy with my career as a musician and teacher. In 1972, I got a call from Vaughn Meader, who had landed in Louisville after blowing his riches on the West Coast. Just prior to JFK's death, Meader was riding high with the fastest-selling album at the time: "The First Family," which featured 17 skits with impersonations of the President. With the death of Kennedy, his comedy act was destroyed and his career stalled.

By the time he got to Louisville, he was no longer a rich man. When I met him, we quickly clicked and formed Vaughn Meader and the Honky Tonk Angels. Vaughn had returned to his roots as a piano-playing comedian.

We played to packed houses in eclectic clubs on Bardstown Road, especially Kenny Pyle's Storefront Congregation.

After a few years in Louisville, Vaughn returned to his home state in Maine, returning to Louisville during racing season. During his last trip, we played a reunion concert at the Rudyard Kipling. His last song in Louisville was Bob Dylan's "I Shall Be Released."

That was his good-bye to us. The presumed assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, had killed twice that fateful day: John F. Kennedy and Vaughn Meader's career.

QUENTIN K. SHARPENSTEIN

Louisville 40213

ADVERTISEMENT

ADVERTISEMENT

ADVERTISEMENT

Email this article

Readers remember President Kennedy

I was a little over a year old when President Kennedy died, so I have no direct memory of him. However, he influenced my life in two ways.